TROMBONIST POWELL KICKS OFF MONDAY NIGHT JAZZ

OWEN McNALLY; SPECIAL TO THE COURANTTHE HARTFORD COURANT

Looking fiscally fit and far healthier than ever after years of surviving many near-death experiences, the Paul Brown Monday Night Jazz Series celebrates its 40th anniversary this summer with a robust lineup, including such grand masters as Toshiko Akiyoshi and Barry Harris.

Long a popular centerpiece of Hartford's summer cultural scene, the free jazz series opens its new season Monday night with a concert featuring veteran trombonist Benny Powell leading his quintet in Bushnell Park.

Powell, the headliner for opening night, is noted for his fast, fluent trombone technique honed by years of experience with the Count Basie Orchestra and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra.

Akiyoshi has been such a creative, innovative big band leader and composer that her well-wrought, bebop-inspired piano skills have sometimes been insufficiently appreciated. Her piano playing is an ideal match for Tabackin's gritty, freewheeling tenor, a pairing that might well be one of the most exciting alliances in Bushnell Park's jazz-filled, starry summer nights in 2007.

Brown, the series founder who's known as "the Big Daddy" of the concept of the free outdoor jazz festival in Hartford, is a globe-trotting jazz bassist who regularly works venues from New York to Japan, to, most recently, an engagement in Dubai of the United Arab Emirates.

As someone who has devoted his life to playing and teaching bass, it's little surprise that Brown has stocked this summer's fare with two veteran bass players, West and Reid. But Brown, a seasoned rhythm section player who has worked with many fine pianists from Al Haig to Harold Mabern, is also well-attuned to and has a deep appreciation for top-of-the-line piano players.

Besides Akiyoshi, Brown also presents Barry Harris, one of the finest and most lyrical of modern jazz pianists.

Although Brown's Monday Night Series has long suffered from and nearly perished from chronic anemic funding, its life signs for 2007, thanks to financial support from Prudential Retirement, are vital and ready to flourish in Bushnell Park.

In the summer of 2005, the series was once again severely strapped for funds and couldn't afford city fees associated with mounting concerts in Bushnell Park. To survive, Brown had to pull out of the park and go indoors on the Trinity College campus where his endangered series was granted a welcoming indoor refuge at the Vernon Center.

Last summer, when the festival's fate seemed hanging by a thread yet once again, Prudential Retirement, a business of Prudential Financial, rode to the rescue.

Joining with the series' producer Garden Area Neighborhood Council, and the Greater Hartford Arts Council, another longtime booster of the program, it brought the series back to Bushnell Park in the summer of 2006.

Prudential offered a life-saving package designed to provide greater financial stability, paired with additional technical and marketing support from the arts council. Among the cash grants, in-kind support and technological and promotional support from the company's staff, Prudential Financial funds well over $25,000 annually for the Monday night series and has made a multi-year commitment.

With such pivotal funding from John Kim, Prudential Retirement president, and tactical and promotional support from Ken Kahn, arts council executive director, Brown for the first time in years faces a new season without having to agonize over when the death knell will toll for his series. Information: www.mondaynightjazz.org.

You can hear Parlato perform Sunday in the next course of the Connecticut Guitar Society's concert/dinner series at Sweet Jane's Rock & Roll Eatery, 88 Pratt St., Hartford. Dinner is served at 6 p.m., followed by the concert at 6:30.

Parlato, the winner of the 2004 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocal Competition, has a soulful sound and a knack for jazz and Brazilian music.

Parlato's pitch is precise. And without an ounce of saccharine sentiment, she creates a sense of warm intimacy, blending swing, sophistication and sensuousness.

A serious student of Brazilian music and the Portuguese language, the Los Angeles native attended UCLA's ethnomusicology department, earning a BA in jazz studies. She was the first vocalist to be accepted into the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance where she studied and performed with Shorter, Hancock and bass/maestro Dave Holland.

In her early teens, Parlato got hooked on bossa nova when she first heard Stan Getz's classic collaborations with Joao and Astrud Gilberto while checking out her mother's record collection.

Parlato has such a natural, flowing, rhythmic way with the jazz samba, you'd think she was raised in Rio rather than in the San Fernando Valley, more girl from Ipanema than Valley Girl.

Tickets: $25 for the concert and dinner; available at the door or by calling CGS at 860-249-7041. Information: www.ccgs.org.

Other notes

Scatmeister Giacomo Gates displays his boisterous bop chops Saturday at 6:30 p.m. at Music Mountain's Jazz at Twilight Series, Falls Village. Information: www.musicmountain.org. The Richie De Lorso Band plays tonight at 7:30 at Szechuan Tokyo, 1245 New Britain Ave., West Hartford. Liviu Pop drums up interest with his quartet Friday at 8 p.m. at the restaurant. Singer Joel Garcia entertains there Sunday at 6 p.m., with backup by pianist/arranger Jim Argiro. Information: 860-561-0180.